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Homily for Wed of the 13th Wk in Ordinary Time, 10 July 2024, 18th Episcopal Ordination Anniversary, Mk 10:1-7
On Thursday last week, the final day of the annual retreat of the CBCP, we has as main presider at the Eucharistic Celebration the Secretary of the Holy See’s Relations with States, Abp. Paul Gallagher. His homily was about AUTHORITY. If I may paraphrase his words, his message to us was, “Dear brother bishops, we have indeed received an authority when we were ordained as bishops. But we should never forget what that authority is about. It is not about lording it over the Church. It is rather about service.”
Today’s Gospel enumerates four concrete expressions of the authority that Jesus gives to the apostles, or the ones he sends: 1) the authority to exorcise, or get rid of spiritual pollutants, 2) the authority to facilitate healing from diseases, 3) the authority to seek out the lost within our reach, and 4) the authority to call attention to God already at work in our midst.
In Mark’s Gospel, these are repeated but differently at the last chapter in his version of the Great Commission. There is one phrase that recurs at each line, reminding the one being sent where his authority is really coming from: IN MY NAME. He will be empowered to do all of these, but only in His Name. Meaning, we who claim to have been sent lose our authority the moment we lose touch with the sender.
We have just come back from our 128th CBCP Plenary Assembly, which took place from Saturday last week, until yesterday, Monday. But our three days of plenary assembkly were preceded by a spiritual retreat. We spent four days of prayer and conversations in the spirit at the TRansfiguration Monastery in Malaybalay, Bukidnon. Days of keeping in touch with our Sender.
My episcopal anniversary, which I celebrate today, took place at the end of our July plenary assembly in 2006. It happened right on the day after the closing of our plenary assembly, so I had at least 70 bishops in attendance, headed by Cardinal Rosales (Lolo Dency) consecrating me to the episcopacy. The preacher was Cardinal Chito Tagle, and the co-presiders were Abp. Aniceto and Abp. Filoni.
Two unforgettable things happened at the laying on of hands, which I cannot explain until now. The first was—I heard a loud explotion right at the moment when Lolo Dency laid his hands on me, and I got jolted. I opened my eyes but I saw no reaction from the bishops who were lining up to also lay hands on me. I began to panic wondering what was going on. But it happened again and again as each bishop lined up to lay hands on my head. Since I seemed to be the only one hearing it, I began to worry if it was a sign that I was going to pass out. I called on the name of Jesus and the exploding sound became weaker and weaker until the last one sounded like a soft pop.
The second unforgettable incident had to do with the open Book of Gospels which two assisting deacons held above my head as prescribed by the Rite of Ordination. The two deacons were both short in stature—almost about my height while kneeling down. I noticed that, as Cardinal Dency Rosales said the long prayer, the hands of the deacons began to shake because of the weight of the Book of Gospels clad in metal. The Book was supposed to be a few inches above my head. It must have been too heavy for the both of them that they allowed its weight to rest on my head. For the first time in my life, I felt the weight of the Word of God pressing heavily on my head that my body began to tremble. That feeling comes back to me each time I feel reluctant to preach and I get reminded by St. Paul’s words, “Woe to me if I don’t preach the Gospel.”
I can’t believe that it’s been eighteen years since that day in 2006. The years have passed so quickly by. Here I am still overwhelmed every now and then by the immensity of the task entrusted to me—a huge responsibility nobody in his right mind would ambition for himself. The explosions I heard on that day still ring inside me. But the Gospel whose weight I carried on my head, which made my shoulders shake, is now much lighter. It is made light by the One in whose sweet name I have been sent to exorcise, to heal, to reach out, to bring about God’s reign. I can do none of these except in Jesus’ name. To him be all the power and the glory and the praise, forever and ever. Amen.
